Mining at Climax

A GOOD idea of the magnitude of the underground operations at Climax can be gained from the following figures. A little more than 43,000,000 tons has been drawn from the mine and of this amount, 40,500,000 tons has been drawn in the past ten years and 12,000,000 tons was drawn in two of the war years. The maximum daily average output over a period of one month was slightly more than 20,000 tons but during this period, production on certain days was 24,000 tons, and 9000 tons was produced in a single eight-hour shift. This production came chiefly from 260 draw points although all of them were never in operation at one time. The haulage system for these draw points is made up of 7.5 miles of 36-in.-gauge track, and 131,000 ft. of subsidiary drifts and 44,000 ft. of raises have been driven to develop the necessary broken ore reserves for this high production. Power consumption is often considered an index of operating efficiency. In 1943, the year of maximum production, the mine power consumption was 19,223,000 kw.-hr. or 3 kw.-hr. per ton; in 1945 it was 3.5 kw.-hr. per ton. To handle this amount of power, there are four transformer stations and one switch station in the mine. Mr. Garrabrant, the chief electrician, describes the electrical installation in this issue.